Peter Smithwick was judge ‘who treated everyone’ with respect, funeral told

Judge Peter Smithwick, a former president of the District Court, was remembered at his funeral Mass as a “special” and “extraordinary” father, a “Renaissance man” and a judge who “treated everyone with respect”.

Many members of the legal profession were among the congregation at the judge’s funeral Requiem Mass on Friday in St Mary’s Cathedral, Kilkenny.

The chief mourners were the judge’s widow, Deirdre, daughters Thalia and Aoife, and his grandchildren. The Taoiseach was represented by his aide de camp, Commandant Claire Mortimer.

A former president of the Order of Malta in Ireland, the judge’s coffin was draped in the flag of the Order and several of its members were in attendance.

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Judge Smithwick was a native of Co Kilkenny and his family, whose ancestors came from England, are a prominent part of the landed gentry of the county. The family firm brewed Smithwick’s beer from 1710 until the operation was acquired by Guinness, now Diageo.

Judge Smithwick’s brother Paul, who was awarded an Order of the British Empire (OBE), died just last month.

Peter Smithwick’s father Walter was a solicitor and his son joined his father’s practice at Inistioge, Kilkenny, as a solicitor at the age of 21 in 1958. He also took over as director of the brewing firm after his father retired.

He was appointed president of the District Court in 1988 and retired from that role in 2005 to chair the Smithwick tribunal of inquiry into alleged Garda collusion in the 1989 murders of two RUC officers in south Armagh. His findings included he was satisfied, on the balance of probabilities, there was collusion in the murders of Chief Supt Harry Breen and Supt Bob Buchanan.

‘Kind’

Thalia Smithwick told the congregation her father was a “kind, understanding” and “completely impractical” man “who has always been there for us”.

When she, as a student, accompanied him on one occasion through the Four Courts, Ms Smithwick said she felt “mortified” by people bowing to him but, when she asked her father was he not embarrassed, he had replied; “They are not bowing to me, they are bowing to the role I am in.”

“That summed up his attitude to life,” she said. He had always said that “having two daughters to mock him kept him grounded”.

Her concluding words were: “Thank you for being so special, I am honoured to be your daughter.”

Aoife Smithwick said her father was an “extraordinary” and intellectual man whom she recalled writing satirical poems in Latin and Irish so the subjects of those would not realise they were being written about.

Many people described him as having “no ordinary wardrobe” and wearing a bowler hat, pin-striped suit and folded umbrella when walking from Heuston Station to the Four Courts”, she said.

Everything that her father did, he did “with the best of intentions”, she said. “He was truly a very good person, we were very privileged to have him as our father.”

Mary Laverty SC, who was counsel to the Smithwick tribunal, said Judge Smithwick was “a Renaissance man” who was very interested in history and law and spoke fluent Irish. “He was a man of the people who treated everyone with respect.”

“Above all, he was a Kilkenny man who was very proud of the contribution his family made to Kilkenny,” she said. “He was a delightful man, a devoted family man who made everyone feel better for knowing him.”